BRUCE PALMER

     Bruce Palmer, who died of a heart attack last October, is best known as the enigmatic bass player whose fluid and intricate bass lines propelled the seminal '60s California rock band, Buffalo Springfield.

     The son of a classically trained violinist and concert master father and artist mother, Palmer was born in Toronto and grew up in the city's Leaside area. Taking up guitar in his teens, he switched to bass at the age of 14 and joined his first group - an all black R&B band led by singer Billy Clarkson.

     Still in high school, Palmer next hooked up with Robbie Lane & the Disciples, a talented R&B outfit that replaced the Hawks (later to become better known as the Band) as Ronnie Hawkins' back up group in 1965. Palmer had moved on before then, however, to play with local beat group Jack London and the Sparrows. With encouragement from the band's singer, the Sparrows had jumped on the British invasion bandwagon and were affecting English accents in a ruse to dupe local punters into believing they had just arrived from England. The band signed to the Canadian arm of Capitol Records in late 1964 and scored a number one hit in Toronto with their debut single, "If You Don't Want My Love".

     Palmer soon grew tired of "affecting English accents" and in January 1965 engineered a trade with the bass player in the Mynah Birds, Nick St Nicholas. At the time, the Mynah Birds were fronted by a young Rick James, then known as Ricky James Matthews, and together they formed a new version of the group with guitarists Tom Morgan and John Taylor and drummer Rickman Mason.

     The Mynah Birds soon won the financial support of John Craig Eaton who was heir to the Eaton dynasty and gained a manger in Morley Shelman who secured an audition with Motown Records in January 1966. However, Tom Morgan left at this point and an unlikely replacement was found in struggling folk singer/songwriter Neil Young, plucked from the street by Palmer after they ran into each other on Yorkville Avenue.

     Returning to Motown in February, the group recorded 16 tracks under Smokey Robinson's supervision but the album was subsequently shelved when the label discovered James was AWOL from the US Navy Reserves.

     Back in Toronto, Young sold the equipment Eaton had bought for the band to purchase a hearse, which he and Palmer used to drive to Los Angeles in search of Stephen Stills, a talented lead guitarist that Young had met the previous year. Stills had formed a duo with rhythm guitarist Richie Furay, who Young had also previously met and they were searching for musicians to form a band. Reunited in a traffic jam on Sunset Boulevard, the quartet founded Buffalo Springfield with drummer Dewey Martin in April 1966.

     From the outset, the rhythm section of Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer set a solid foundation for the front three singer/songwriters. As Toronto guitarist Stan Endersby reveals, "It's true how they were so important for forming that sound. So many people have drawn from it and made it their own but they were the first to lock that groove and feel."

     Palmer's intricate and inventive bass lines were especially integral to the overall feel of the band's music, as the group's first manager Barry Friedman later told John Einarson in his book on Buffalo Springfield. "Bruce was very important to their sound because he kept everything very loose no matter what. He was very melodic and did a lot of neat things that tied in with the songs rather than being a tight player."

     On stage, Palmer would often stand statuesque with his back to the audience, pumping out fluid bass lines. Off stage he portrayed a beguiling mystique, which had a profound effect on Neil Young. As noted rock journalist Johnny Rogan rightly points out, Young learned a lot about projecting an enigmatic persona from his friend.

     The group's career certainly looked promising, but Palmer's various run-ins with the law over his prolific drug use resulted in his deportation to Canada in January 1967 shortly after the release of the group's debut album. The band struggled on without him over the next six months with various inferior stand-ins.

     Back in Toronto, Palmer became loosely involved with the Heavenly Government, a jazz-rock outfit formed in 1966 by drummer Geordie McDonald, who'd also shared a Neil Young connection, albeit briefly, when he played in the pre-Mynah Birds group, Four To Go. McDonald remembers Palmer playing electric and dobro bass with the band for several gigs, including one at the Penny Farthing.

     By June, Palmer had managed to sneak back across the border and resume his position in the Buffalo Springfield, just in time to appear at the first international pop festival, Monterey in northern California. Later that year, he contributed to the recording of their second album, Buffalo Springfield Again as well as several songs that found their way on to the band's swansong album, Last Time Around before being busted again in January 1968 and deported back to Canada.

     Palmer spent most of 1968 doing very little other than sitting around and playing sitar. In June 1969, he was invited to join Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young but was soon ditched in favour of Greg Reeves. During his short stint with the band, Palmer helped record an electric version of Stills' "Helplessly Hoping" and Nash and Terry Reid's "Horses Through A Rainstorm", which was shelved at the time but later surfaced on the CSN box set, released in 1991.

     He remained largely inactive during the early 1970s. After rehearsing with Toronto blues band, Luke & the Apostles, he signed a solo deal with Verve Forecast and recorded the mysterious, The Cycle Is Complete, featuring contributions from Rick James and members from Kaleidoscope. Not surprisingly, the record died a quick death. He also performed his own "Recital Palmer" on Dewey Martin's Medicine Ball album.

     In 1977, Palmer returned to live performances with the short-lived Toronto band, the Village, formed with Kensington Market singer/songwriter and guitarist Keith McKie and lead guitarist Stan Endersby, who'd recorded with Peter Quaife's post Kinks band, Maple Oak and with Rick James in Heaven and Earth.

     His attempt to persuade the original members of Buffalo Springfield to reform in the early 1980s resulted in Neil Young hiring him for his Trans tour and album. But Palmer's poor physical shape and heavy drinking prevented him from making the most from his return to the stage.

     In mid-1980s, he joined Dewey Martin, Stan Endersby and Neil Young-soundalike, singer/songwriter Frank Wilks in the tribute band, Buffalo Springfield Revisited. The band toured for nearly three years and recorded an unreleased version of Neil Young's "Down To The Wire" before Palmer retired from the business in 1988.

     Palmer rejoined original members, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Dewey Martin for Buffalo Springfield's induction in to the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame in May 1997 but Neil Young's non-appearance marred the occasion. In recent years, he had been plagued by ill health and had retreated to a farm north of Toronto to write his memoirs.

     Long-term friend Stan Endersby remembers Palmer fondly: "One of the most important things about Bruce was he was a great friend," he says. "He was a singer's best friend, he never got in the way of the melody and he never stepped on the vocal. He should be remembered for the important part he played in the Buffalo Springfield. I've never met anyone who plays bass like Bruce did in my musical life."

     Mynah Birds drummer Rickman Mason agrees: "He was to this day, the best bass player I have ever worked with."